Sun and moon serve God

Light is introduced in the creation narrative mysteriously and without fanfare, but we also see light in that narrative as commonplace and serving as everyone’s clock. Day, month, year, seedtime and harvest (cold/hot and wet/dry) are functions of light sources, both the great and the lesser.

Light mysteriously from God’s command

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5, NASB)

Photo zoo, big light, little light

We live in a photo-op zoo, but death is also ionized as darkness.

Light separator

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.  God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth…

Genesis 1:14-17, NASB

From this narrative in Genesis we learn that light has a purpose, that being to separate, to create the ability to distinguish created elements. It does not seem that ELOHIM created light to banish or condemn the darkness. The deep was dark, not conducive to his plans for life. ELOHIM is light but he also created light, and that created light made it possible for distinctiveness to be made.

What time is it?

As surely as the information in Genesis 1 is unique and I inimitable so is the appearance of God in the flesh.  The appearance is one of a kind and timelocked. When we answer the question “What time is it?” we synchronize our clocks with day or night, or one of Yahweh’s annual festivals.  The architecture of human times has made it so that whether it is night or day light is available.

Lesser light and stellar apostles

“Lesser light” is moonlight, and if someone was mindful of the arrival of a light-bearing era the time is permanently day. We cannot imagine who needs moonlight in the daytime.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;

from 1 Thessalonians 5

Sleepyhead and drunkard

Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10, NASB)

Give me the Sun of Righteousness

People are known to walk in the night and stumble, because light is either minimal or absent (see John 11:10). Indeed when the moon is under the feet of the woman who gives birth to the church (Revelation 12) it is certain that moonlight is the least of our concerns. Furthermore, the woman is clothed with the sun, she has stars (suns) forming her crown! Just think how inescapable is our obligation to avoid elevating moonlight to appear as the high and glorious riches of the gospel. The life shared by believers by means of faith is not an outcome of the creation of big or little light, but the will of the Light becoming our very clothing.